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Monday, February 9, 2009

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Paper quilts...

My art group is working on an interesting project of using five photographs for inspiration and creating five small works which will be shown together. My first completed quilt is called "The Gates" based on a photograph of the New York skyline taken by Linda Zimmerman of Madison, CT. The photo shows the skyline in the background, with Christo's installation of orange "Gates" billowing in the wind in Central Park. I interpreted image loosely, and built my quilt entirely of paper. The buildings are made of vintage and new magazine advertisements, stamps and junk mail. They rest on a map of the world, with one corner of a building near New York City, and another reaching toward North Africa. Other papers were gleaned from my mother's scrapbook supplies I inherited several years ago. Even the back of the quilt is handmade wrapping paper. I used stiff interfacing as a batting (Peltex 70) and held the work together with glue and machine stitching. Lastly, the orange gates were applied. They are made of burned felt and burned bits of the actual Gate fabric which volunteers distributed in Central Park during the exhibition. The piece sold almost immediately after it was completed, so I will have to make another for our exhibition.